Around Here Week 13: 03/26-04/01

 A glimpse into what it is like to live in our home just this moment. 

photo cred: Mrs. Roman

photo cred: Eva M

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Intentional Outdoor Hours: 29+ hours (of 1000)
Hopefully the last week of wacky weather and then spring will bust through and never look back again (fingers crossed!) One day this week we had snow on the ground when we woke up and by the afternoon, we were sitting at Grey's baseball game in the sunshine (welcome to western PA where we wear sweaters in the morning and tank tops in the afternoon!) Thankfully opening day of trout was unbelievable gorgeous for most of the afternoon...until within the span of literally 10 minutes, storm clouds rolled in, winds of 30+ miles an hour, and crazy thunder and lightening sent us home! 

Reading Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri and The Lake by Natasha Preston

Visiting with my parents on Sunday and getting a whole nap (!!) I started to feel awfully sick and my parents took over and sent me off to bed to get some rest. (thank you!) I was wonderful and then I left Violet with them for the rest of the evening for a little special one-on-one time. Later in the week, my mom stopped at our house during the school day to clean up our back porch in preparation for Reddy's party and it was amazing! I know she busted her butt all day cleaning up that mess back there and now it looks organized and party-ready. So very grateful for parents who can see I need help even when I never say it aloud and step in to take charge. (xxo)

Calling in sick on Monday because I was so sick with congestion and allergies. Dizzy, headache, painful sinus pressure, just felt absolutely awful. There was no way I was going to have the patience to put up with my students (whom I love, but still). Miss Emma still came to watch the kids, so I had a real sick day (!?!?!) I literally laid in bed the entire day, watched the whole season of Wednesday and slept. It was amazing and I was feeling A LOT better by Monday evening. 

Vet check for Bullet and Trixie and they are all good, but definitely in their "twilight years" as our sweet vet explained. Bullet (a shepherd mix) is 13 and Trixie (a bully mix) is 11 now. We got Bullet some more pain meds (his hips!) and they both weigh less than they ever have, but nothing in the concern levels. We are just to keep loving them for as long as we get with them now. 

Winning the staff weight loss challenge! We did 12 weeks and I did Keto for about 11 weeks of the 12 and I was really faithful and lost a total of 15 lbs and won the challenge! Yay me! 

Prom planning kicking into high gear. We picked out crowns & tiaras for prom king & queen this week and made another deposit from our fundraiser. We scheduled a meeting with our venue for during spring break too and we set a goal for our budget for that meeting. Students are promposing each other (hah), and tickets are being sold and permission slips being signed. We are getting there and it is creeping up pretty quickly now! 

Losing all three ducks! The coop got raided by a racoon and we lost all three ducks. Brandon found the whole in the chicken wire and we figured it was a racoon since they were headless (ugh, so sad). The saying "sitting ducks" is really based on truth because our chickens at least roost high in pine trees and make an attempt to escape - ducks are just defenseless and the easiest prey on a farm. We are considering not getting ducks anymore because of that reason, but also because they are fairly high maintenance (always needing water, so so messy) and they are so loud! We will see...it's almost baby bird season! 

Celebrating our three year old Reddy! He helped me make dino footprint cookies on Thursday night and then we had a Dinosaur party at our house on Saturday to celebrate with pudding/dirt dino cups, hot dogs, dino chicken nuggies, baked beans (Mimi), dino pasta salad (Abba), Dino fruit platter (Miss Hannah), cowboy caviar (Miss Emma), and Herbivore veggie platter (Kitty). The kids wrecked the back porch (lol) breaking apart eggs to find the dino figurine, and Red was so excited about presents (thank you to everyone who spoiled the freaking heck out of that kid!) We sang to Mimi and Red (who share a birthday 82 years apart!) It was friends and family and good food and so many smiles and hugs. Love you all for loving our kids so well. 

Fishing season makes all my boys happy! B met Uncle Jonny at Yellowcreek Trout club one day this week and then we all headed out to Bedford fishing camp for opening day of Trout. Brandon went first thing in the morning with Grey, cousin Caleb, and friends Bryce and Reed. They met Pappy out there and then I brought the rest of the kids later in the afternoon where we met up with Heather and the three girls. Heather and I brought a ton of snackies and we enjoyed the gorgeous sunshine for most of the afternoon. Gem, Lainey, Violet, and Remi made themselves a little mudslide and of course all of the kids were soaking wet by the end of the afternoon since those camp rats can't help themselves from getting in the creek. 

Teaching four days this week since I called off on Monday for sickness. Spanish 1 learned the vocab for El Cuerpo and worked on writing this week. Spanish 2 read chapters 6 & 7 in Esperanza and Spanish 3/4 finished Fiesta Fatal and we researched the Dominican Republic in preparation for our next (and last for the year!) novel Felipe Alou. I gave out LMA passes since the third quarter ended last week. We are so close to spring break that we can nearly taste it so it's a lot of patience for these ants-in-the-pants students right now. 

Sporting with Grey's first Jr High baseball game on Thursday and practices the other weekdays. Violet had two Sparks soccer practice - thank goodness for the Feathers family and the McDannell family who is always willing to give Vi a ride while we try to manage toddlers and sibling sports (love you guys!)  I completely forgot about the AYSO meet the coach night until the next morning (oops! #momfail #asstcoachfail). Brandon met with one of his assistant football coaches this week and got even more pumped for the upcoming season! 

Making chicken/veggie/stuffing casserole, Korean beef with green beans and rice, Salsa crockpot chicken for tacos, spaghetti, chili and mac&cheese, and buffalo chicken dip. I made a bunch of food for Reddy's birthday party too like cookies, dirt cups, and dino nuggies.